


fade into me

by vindicatedtruth (behindtintedglass)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, coda to 3x17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 11:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18410108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindtintedglass/pseuds/vindicatedtruth
Summary: Post-Heavenly Fire. Alec doesn't need Magnus to be happy. He just needsthis.





	fade into me

 

 

“I’m sorry,” Magnus cries brokenly as he clutches Alec like a lifeline, polished fingers crumpling the expensive fabric of Alec’s suit, and Alec holds on just as tightly, feeling like both of them are drowning and yet neither of them is a buoy. They’re both sinking, and Alec squeezes his eyes shut as he mournfully croons “ _Let me be with you_ ” and thinks silently to himself, _even when we can’t breathe, like this._

“I’m sorry,” Magnus repeats, voice cracking with emotion, and Alec buries his face in Magnus’ neck and lets the centuries of agony and loneliness quiver from his lover’s body to his. “I’m sorry that I can’t love you the way you need me to right now, when I can’t even love myself.”

The sting of tears springs from Alec’s eyes unbidden, and furiously Alec swallows back the lump in his throat, thinking about the ring waiting on the candlelit table behind them and feeling as if Magnus has answered his unspoken proposal anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus finally sags against him, wetting his chest with the steady flow of his own tears, and dimly Alec wants to feel them against his lips, wanting to catalogue and memorise every single detail about Magnus—even this: the taste of his incomprehensible sorrow.

He presses a kiss against Magnus’ eyelids, eyelashes fluttering weakly against his mouth like the frail wings of a flighty bird, and Magnus whispers against his throat, “I’m sorry, Alec… because all you’ve ever wanted for me was to be happy… and I—”

Magnus’ words break on a sharp intake of breath—like bursting through the surface for a gulp of air before the waves crash down on him again, pushing him down, drowning, ever drowning—and he gasps, “I can’t even give that to you, Alec, _Alexander_ , my love, my own, my heart, my _life_ , I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

The kiss is fierce, silencing those wretched words as Magnus surges against him, mouth opening helplessly as Alec plunges inside, sucking all the self-loathing form Magnus’ mouth and swallowing it inside his own constricted throat.

They part in a gasp, Magnus immediately lunging for him again, wanting to drown in _him_ , and Alec’s heart clenches when he realises _he_ has been the reason Magnus isn’t able to _breathe._

“Magnus,” Alec hisses even as Magnus whimpers, reaching for him weakly; stubbornly, Alec grips him by the shoulders to keep him at bay, and it’s wrong, _so_ wrong that Alec is so much stronger than Magnus now, that Magnus is so _powerless_ , and Alec—

Alec loves him—utterly, completely, _insanely_ and overpoweringly—to vow him this:

“You don’t have to be happy,” Alec declares, feeling as if his heart is being wrenched by a demon of his own making. “You hear me, Magnus? I want you to be whatever you need to be—sad, if you need to, _angry_ if you want to—I just want to be _here._ For you, _with_ you, because I _swear to you_ that you will never be alone ever again, do you hear me?”

“Alexander—”

“ _Do you fucking hear me, Magnus Bane_?”

And ludicrously, Magnus erupts into a watery laugh, even as a fresh surge of tears stream down his cheeks in rivulets of smoky eyeliner and god, _god,_ Alec has never seen anyone so otherworldly and so magical _—_ so perfectly, utterly, beautifully _human._ “I hear you, you stubborn Shadowhunter,” Magnus murmurs, and the smile he offers Alec feels like a gift he doesn’t deserve.

Magnus’ lips cling sweetly to Alec’s.

He tastes like the sea.

“Don’t leave me, Alexander,” Magnus whispers. “Please, please don’t ever leave me. Not even when I ask you to.”

Alec cups Magnus’ face between his clumsy callused hands, and knows he is holding the world.

“I won’t.”

 

 


End file.
